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Power-sharing begins in Northern Ireland

BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Paying tribute to the thousands who died, the leaders of Northern Ireland drew a formal line Tuesday under decades of hostility and bloodshed, re-establishing a power-sharing local authority made up of once implacable foes.

Watched by dignitaries from Britain, Ireland, the United States and elsewhere, the Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the dominant party among Northern Ireland's Protestants, and Martin McGuinness, the deputy head of the republican and mainly Catholic Sinn Fein party, were sworn in as leader and deputy leader of the Northern Ireland executive government.

" Today we will witness not hype but history," McGuinness said as he arrived for the ceremonies. Paisley told reporters that "while this is a sad day for all the innocent victims of all The Troubles, yet it is a special day because we are making a new beginning. I believe we are starting on a road to bring us back to peace and prosperity."

Formally, the events Tuesday at the Stormont Assembly building in a suburb of Belfast were simply the end of a suspension of the local authority declared in October, 2002, in a dispute over allegations of espionage by the Irish Republican Army. The province has been ruled from London since then, but direct rule ended Tuesday and politicians hailed the moment as historic.

The ceremonies Tuesday were dominated by two parties — the republican Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party, which wants continued union with Britain — once seen as the most hard-line adversaries.

Their agreement to share power, struck in March, followed years of hard-nosed negotiation during which the Irish Republican Army, affiliated to Sinn Fein, abandoned its armed struggle and said it would embrace politics as the means of securing a united Ireland.

Peter Hain, Britain's Northern Ireland Minister said the deal to restore local government "is going to stick" because "these are the two most polarized forces in Northern Ireland's politics, they have done the deal."

In 30 years of violence known as The Troubles, over 3,500 people died in bitter sectarian fighting and conflict with the British Army in Northern Ireland that sometimes spilled onto the British mainland in bomb attacks.

Since ceasefires in the 1990s, successive British governments have struggled to cement peace, enshrined in the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, attended the ceremony Tuesday, both pursuing political goals of their own.

Blair is expected to announce this week that he will step down as leader in June or early July and is seeking to build a legacy of achievement to survive his record-breaking 10 years and three straight election victories as Labor Party leader.

Asked by the BBC why he had devoted such energies to a settlement, Blair said: "I had a sense or an instinct that the time was right."

"It's a tremendous thing for me which I do feel emotionally," he said.

Ahern is also seeking a third term in Irish elections on May 24 where Sinn Fein, which has a toe-hold in the Irish parliament, is seeking to expand its influence, challenging the prime minister's own party.

At the ceremonies, Paisley was sworn in as First Minister with McGuinness as his deputy — a once unthinkable constellation of personalities. Paisley long accused McGuinness of being an I.R.A. "terrorist." He acquired the nickname "Dr No" for his rejection of the Good Friday agreement and of cooperation with his adversaries.

Significantly, the oath Tuesday included a commitment to the police force in Northern Ireland. This had long been resisted by Sinn Fein because the force was seen as part of the unionist enemy.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, is not a member of the local executive, but he attended the ceremonies. "It's a good day for Ireland, a good day for all the people of this island," he said, repeating Sinn Fein's commitment to bringing together the two parts of Ireland — the Republic in the south and the British province made up of six counties in the north. " We are going to change the political landscape from here out," he said.

At various stages in the negotiations, the United States played an important role in pushing the two sides together.

President Bill Clinton made three high-profile visits to Northern Ireland and President George W. Bush came here in 2003.

In 2005, however, both Bush and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy snubbed Adams during a visit by him to Washington to register their distaste at the murder of Robert McCartney, a Northern Ireland Catholic, in a Belfast pub by a group that included members of the I.R.A.

As he arrived for the ceremony Tuesday, Sen. Kennedy, part of an American delegation, said: "This is an extraordinary example that Northern Ireland is really showing to the world that you can disband the militias, the private armies, you can put aside the bomb and bullet and through political reconciliation hopefully carry through the hopes and dreams of the people."